In general the present invention relates to an application building environment. More specifically, the present invention relates to an application building and managing environment in which users of computer systems, including ones with minimal programming knowledge, create and share powerful software applications.
In a conventional application building environment such as in most third and fourth generation programming languages, the task of constructing an application requires intensive knowledge of specialized methods and structures. Existing application environments do not enable end-users with limited programming knowledge to combine program modules from other users and program developers into complicated applications. The sharing of program components is done on a level inaccessible by the end-user. Furthermore, existing systems do not combine programming at different skill and complication levels into a unified environment where complex programming and simple end-user programming follow the same approach. The components of an application are usually rigorously embedded into the program source code either in the form of text or as a combination of text and objects. This results in difficulties in sharing computer components. Module and data dictionaries and well organized program libraries provide a partial solution to this problem. However there are still very limited possibilities for end-users of computer systems to share or even build complicated applications involving rich modular programming structure without intensive knowledge of a complicated programming environment.
The introduction of multidimensional spreadsheets allows users of such systems to create more complicated calculation models through a smooth transaction from two-dimensional spreadsheets and is thus a step toward making applications manageable by the end-user. Current spreadsheet systems however do not focus the user""s attention on the underlying logical modular structure ever-present in an application. Furthermore current spreadsheet systems do not generalize the spreadsheet concept in such a way that powerful programming techniques can be applied without leaving the methodology of the spreadsheet environment but instead employ add-on techniques such as the writing of macros to enhance usability.
There exist numerous source code generators and fourth generation programming environments using graphical structures as part of application generation. Source code generators however and most other application building environments, by definition, are intended for program development and provide an environment for developing applications which is entirely different from the end-user environment. Thus the end user is separated from the application building environment and is unable to create or share application components without moving up to the application developing level.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,956,773, issued Sep. 11, 1990 to Saito et al., describes methods for creating programs using various diagrams. The Saito patent is directed to an apparatus for automatically creating a source program, in particular the coding of the source program is automatically performed from program specifications which the programmer generates, in order to reduce the burden required to create such a source program. As illustrated in FIG. 11 of Saito, the source code is automatically generated from a module structure diagram.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,255,363, issued Oct. 19, 1993 to Seyler, describes methods for writing programs within a spreadsheet application. The Seyler patent is directed to a graphical programming system with a spreadsheet base for enabling users to create graphical programs for displaying and manipulating data. The Seyler invention allows a user to create graphical programs which can monitor parameters (such as cost and reliability) and provide feedback during the design of electronic systems, such as circuit boards.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,317,686, issued May 31, 1994 to Salas et al., describes relabeling of spreadsheet cells. The Salas et al patent is directed to an apparatus and labeling scheme which permits a user to reformat, redefine, and relabel the various cells of a multidimensional spreadsheet The Salas et al patent also permits the creation of multidimensional spreadsheets where calculations are specified through general, rather than per cell, formulae.
An object of the present invention is to provide a graphical application developing and managing environment in which the building and sharing of application components is done largely by the end-user.
The above object is accomplished by combining a graphical logical modular structure diagram, methods for embedding source code for a class of programming languages into a visual spreadsheet-like format, and standardized interfaces into modules and external applications.
Central to the present invention is the definition of an indication value system which allows spreadsheet methodology to be applied to an advanced functional language. The indication value system is an extremely practical invention since it empowers the spreadsheet user to create general software applications without having to abandon the spreadsheet methodology. It thus addresses the well known challenge of end-user empowerment in the creation of software components.
Modular structure is present in any software application and can be visualized in many different ways depending on which program parts are grouped together to form a module and how they are interconnected. However the term logical modular structure used above represents a modular structure describing a solution to a specific task an application is intended to perform.
According to the present invention, application or module building can be done by drawing on a display unit a logical modular structure diagram describing how the new module is connected to other modules representing existing applications, previously written modules and unfinished modules. Using this diagram detailed description about the application is attached to the various parts of the diagram so as to represent the flow of information between the modules and the manipulation and visual representation of information. The new module is assigned an interface part. The interface part is a standardized interface, through which future applications communicate, and which can be used as an interface to external applications such as databases. The present invention thus enables the creation of standardized interfaces, visually represented, into modules including modules which overlay external applications.
The present invention provides methods for using as an equivalent alternative to the text format a spreadsheet-like format when writing and executing source code written in a functional programming language, methods for moving back and forth from the spreadsheet format and the traditional text format and methods for attaching source code to the parts of the above logical modular structure diagram.
There exist many different ways to define statements in a functional language, or any language for that matter, other than using traditional text definitions. The methods described herein also apply in cases when alternatives to the text format are used. This can be verified by noticing that one can translate alternative representations of code into the traditional text format. The patchwork mechanism, which will be described in details below, can be considered to be a graphical representation/definition of statements defining calls to child modules and is thus an example of an alternative to the text format for such statements. The patchwork mechanism employs the cell format, described herein also, to define parent-child module relationships in an end-user friendly way.
The term functional programming language or a functional language refers to a programming language in which each statement written in the language can be evaluated, based on its dependent variables, to a uniquely defined value of some type. This does not automatically exclude languages in which order of execution is important, since we do not require the languages to be xe2x80x9cpure functional languagesxe2x80x9d, see for example in the literature: Sethi, Ravi. Programming Languages, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1990. The term advanced functional language applies to a functional language which can be used to handle and return more complex variables than the basic variable types text and number. An example of a very simple source code (module Audio) written according to the above principle is shown in connection with the description of FIG. 8.
In one aspect, the invention relates to a method for visually representing in a computer system a program specification, i.e., source code, written in an advanced functional language in a spreadsheet-like cell format and for allowing the execution of the program specification within the cell format. The method comprises:
communicating with a display device connected to a process device,
accessing a cell frame containing multiple cells displayed on said display device,
displaying text and icons in said cell frame,
associating selected variables and corresponding definitions in said program specification with cells in said cell format,
determining values of said selected variables by executing said program specification, and
displaying in cells, associated with said selected variables, an indication value determined by an indication function representing values of said selected variables.
The invention also relates to a system which is suitable for performing the method. The system comprises
(a) Means for communicating with a display device connected to a process device. In a normal setting, this may be a program which through the operating system of the computer displays cell-frames, text and figures on a display device.
(b) Means for accessing a cell frame containing multiple cells displayed on said display device. This may be provided, via a computer program, by naming the cells and by tracking information about the cells such as location and content.
(c) Means for displaying text and icons in said cell frame. This may be a program capable of changing the content of a cell on request.
(d) Means for associating selected variables and their definitions in said program specification to cells in said cell format. This may be a program connecting variable names from the source code to cell names in the cell frame.
(e) Means for determining values of said selected variables by executing said program specification. This may be a compiler and a parser or an interpreter of the programming language used.
(f) Means for displaying in cells, associated to said selected variables, an indication value determined by an indication function representing values of said selected variables. This may be a program implementing an indication function capable of displaying in a cell, an indication value of a variable, defined in the source code by a statement written in an advanced functional language and associated with the cell, representing objects of a more general nature than formatted text or numbers. Such objects are, for example, tables from a database, databases, rows from tables, sound and video specifications, geometrical figures, program parts such as forms, mathematical formulas and many other objects.
Normal spreadsheet systems do not extend to allow the general representation of code written/created in an advanced functional language as discussed in the present description.
In important embodiments, the system includes means for displaying the full value of a variable associated to a cell in the cell format. This may be a program communicating to the user additional information about the object referred to by the value associated with the cell and possibly submitting the value to another system capable of providing insight into the value when such a system is available. Displaying the full value thus attempts to display a value in a system native to the value. An example of a full value would be to open up a table frame to display the content of a table referred to in a cell. This is done, depending on the embodiment, by submitting the table value to a system capable of displaying and possibly allowing the editing of the content of the table in a table frame or including a procedure capable of displaying the content of the table in the embodiment itself. Another example is submitting a sound variable, referred to in a cell, to a sound system thus allowing the user to play or edit the sound within the system.
In any practical embodiment the system should include means for editing the statement defining the variable associated to a cell in the cell format. These means may, e.g., be provided by a program implementing a text editor displaying the definition of a statement associated to a cell, upon request, and allowing the user to edit the statement definition similar to the editing of functions and formulas in most spreadsheet applications. This occurs at a lower level connecting an input device and a process device in a way which enables the editing.
In some cases it may be convenient for the user to be able to view some part of the program specifications in a pure text format and the invention provides means for doing that and for going between the two formats, i.e., the cell and the standard text format. This feature may be provided by using the standard text format and by implementing a translation algorithm, see, e.g., FIG. 10 and FIG. 11, to move back and forth between the display formats.
In an embodiment of the invention, the cell format is used together with additional means to structure and visualize the writing and editing of a program application further. A system suitable for this embodiment would further include means comprising:
(a) Means for communicating with an input device connected to the process device for allowing the editing of text and figures.
(h) Means, provided, e.g., by a program capable of drawing parent-child relational diagrams, for displaying a modular structure diagram on the display device representing the call declarations part of the program specification.
(i) Means for organizing the remaining program specification, excluding the call declarations, of said program specification into predetermined smaller parts each containing a selection of variables and their definitions. This may be a program, usually part of the parsing mechanism and possibly accepting user input, to classify the statements in said program specification.
(j) Means for displaying at least some of said parts and, if desired, each of said parts, on the display device. This feature may be provided by displaying the statements in each part either in text or cell format.
(k) Means for editing or creating the program specification by editing at least some of said parts and/or by editing said modular structure diagram. The editing of the statements in text or cell format may be done by a text editor as described above. Editing said modular structure diagram is usually done with a graphical editor capable of representing parent-child modular relationships, and the resulting modular structure is translated to conform to the programming language used.
In most programming languages, code can be divided into several parts which are expressed differently in different languages, but serve the same purpose. Such a division is obtained by classifying program specifications into input declarations, output declarations, call declarations, call definitions and program statements. For this division it is assumed that said input declarations, when assigned values, define values of said output declarations using said output declarations, said call declarations, said call definitions and said program statements. It is also assumed that said call definitions define a flow of information through the modular structure existing in the program and that the modular structure is described by said call declarations. An embodiment of the invention uses this classification and represents each of the parts, not necessarily independently, in various formats for viewing, execution, tracing and editing.
Logically this classification is related to the modular structure diagram and, in an embodiment, an association is created between areas of the diagram, for example knots representing modules and lines representing the flow between modules, by assigning at least some of the program parts, or if desired each of the program parts, excluding call declarations, to specific areas or objects of the diagram. The user can then access a specific part of the program specifications by using an input/pointing device to designate an object or area of the modular structure diagram. These additional means may be implemented using well-known program routines.
In another aspect, the invention relates to an application building and sharing environment, comprising:
(a) A collection of, possibly user defined, program modules stored on storage devices.
(b) Display means capable of defining a work area on a display device.
(c) Module organizing means for organizing a program module from said collection into predefined parts including an interface part, call declaration part and call definition part. These means may be provided by a program, usually part of the parsing mechanism and possibly accepting and storing user input at some point, to classify the statements in said program module.
(d) Icon representation means capable of assigning icons to at least some of the program modules, or if desired each of the program modules, from said collection and capable of displaying said icons on the work area. This feature may be provided by associating each module to a geometrical figure or a bitmap and possibly also text and displaying the resulting figure and text on said work area.
(e) Interface representation means capable of displaying, on the work area, said interface part of a program module from said collection in a cell format, using indication values.
(f) Data flow representation means capable of displaying, on said work area using a cell format, the call definition part of a parent-child module relationship within a program module from said collection. Examples are explained in connection with FIG. 7.
(g) Structure means capable of displaying on the work area a modular structure diagram for a program module from the collection graphically, representing the parent-child module relationships declaration part within the program module, see, e.g., FIG. 4.
(h) Sharing means to allow a user to select program modules from said collection and represent a selected program module by its icon on said work area. This feature may, in one embodiment, be provided by a shared folder-like system allowing the user to select the program module and locate it on the work area using an input/pointing device.
(i) Program module editing means capable of allowing the user to edit and add program modules to said collection by editing each of said predefined parts of a program module from said collection.
(j) Program module execution means capable of determining and displaying, using the interface cell format of a program module from said collection, indication values representing results of executing said program module definitions. This feature may be provided by an algorithm implementing an indication function after the execution (implies parsing and compiling or interpreting) of the code has assigned values to the relevant variables.
One embodiment of the environment is implemented as follows. The above program module editing means allow a user of the application environment to edit graphically said modular structure diagram to create and delete parent-child relationships within the module. The data flow definitions are edited within the data flow cell format, explained in connection with FIG. 7, and wherein said interface part is edited within the interface cell format, see FIG. 5 and FIG. 6. The graphical editing of the modular structure (call declarations) and the editing of the flow between modules using the data flow cell format defines a patchwork mechanism in the environment. Thus, it becomes possible for the user to define program and flow variables and view their values simultaneously using a patchwork mechanism.
For a user not allowed to change the definition of a particular module in the collection, this will be sufficient to allow the user to view results obtained by executing the module. In order to be able to define the module, using the cell format, the environment must not exclude the remaining statements (the program part) from being edited in the cell format.
In an application environment, in which users have access to shared programming modules, there should be some way to control the access of the individuals to the modules. In an embodiment, his may be provided by associating with each module, information about the privileges required to use the module and comparing it to privileges of users trying to access the module.
In a preferred embodiment of the environment it is important to be able to adjust to at least some other existing programming environments. This may be achieved by implementing a compiler, for the programming language used, returning object code compatible to other systems, also referred to here as exporting a module to another system.
The above application building and sharing environment may further include means for associating and displaying with the module icon, of a program module from above collection, icons representing user selected variables within the program module specification. This feature may be provided by associating a control icon, usually a button, with a specific variable in the program specification. Then means for allowing a user to access the full value of the variable, associated to the control icon, may be provided by executing, upon request, the program parts needed to define the variable and when the variable value has been determined the full value is displayed. Since, for non-constants, the value of a variable in a module is only defined when the input variables are defined, this assumes that the system has available input values for the module. A suitable way is to store, for each user, the input values used in the last execution of the module or a set of default input values. In a spreadsheet system this is always the case, i.e., values are not removed from the cells after execution of the program.
In yet another aspect, the invention relates to a method of representing with an application (e.g. module) icon, at least some of the executable parts from within an application. A system useful for performing this method comprises:
(a) A program module, defining an application, specified using an advanced functional language.
(b) An icon representing said application.
(c) Means for displaying icons on a display device.
(d) Means for allowing a user to select variables from within said program module and represent at least some of the selected variable independently with a respective icon (such as icon 402 shown on FIG. 4). This feature is provided by enabling the user to choose from the source code which variables should be represented individually.
(e) Means for allowing the user to define the display positions of the variable icons relative to the application icon. This may be done by storing and using the relative position, selected by the user, of the variable icon.
(f) Means for displaying the application icon and the variable icons on a display device in the configuration determined by the user. This feature is usually provided by a figure and bitmap display mechanism and by retrieving the relative position of each of the variable icons from storage.
(g) Means for communicating with an input/pointing device and displaying the full value of at least some of the variables selected when the associated variable icon is designated by said input device. This feature is provided in a manner similar to the feature discussed above and requires the system to have available input values for the module.
This generates a setting in which a user of the application can execute, at run-time, each of the selected variables from within the application. In the case of a value pointing to an external document or object, this allows the user to access the (selected) external documents used in the program module.
Updating child modules in the system generates the well known problem of compatibility with existing parent modules. This issue is addressed by providing the system with ways to graphically represent multiple versions of modules as explained in connection with FIG. 4.
Thus, the system includes means for storing multiple versions of said program module and means for displaying with the application icon a time axis and time icons, means for associating to at least some of the time icons a specific version of said program module and means for displaying the icon configuration according to the version associated to a time icon designated by said input device. Using time axes in accordance with this embodiment can, of course, be generalized, beyond the environments otherwise discussed herein, to more generalized settings in graphical environments where multiple versions of programs are used. Thus, this use of time axes and icons constitutes a special, independent aspect of the present invention.
Practical Application of the Present Invention
The present invention provides an environment (including a system, method, and medium) which enables an end-user, who may have fairly limited programming language skills, to develop application programs. This is done by providing methods which extend the methodology of a spreadsheet system to a complete application development environment. The spreadsheet methodology is extended to a complete functional language keeping the advantages of spreadsheets for the end-user intact. Thus the invention makes use of the knowledge of a spreadsheet user, to create program applications. Further, the invention provides ways to utilize the spreadsheet extension in a patchwork mechanism which allows the developer and the end-user to share program components in an end-user friendly way. As a result, the cost of development and maintenance of new application programs will be significantly reduced because the invention utilizes to a greater extent the knowledge of the user. Moreover the invention provides cost efficiency by allowing reuse and sharing of program modules between end-users and developers with different background by combining the spreadsheet extension with other end-user friendly paradigms.